


Loyalty of a God

by Gotcocomilk



Category: Bleach
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, BAMF Kurosaki Ichigo, BAMF Urahara Kisuke, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Fix-It, Fluff and Angst, Found Family, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Reio!Kisuke, look I saw a god-opportunity and took it, sorta - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-27
Updated: 2020-05-27
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:20:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24407932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gotcocomilk/pseuds/Gotcocomilk
Summary: The first time Ichigo saw the man with the eyes of a god, he was nine years old and standing before a grave.He was cold.or: Kisuke's trial doesn't quite go to plan for the Central 46. It goes perfectly to plan for the Zeroth Division.
Relationships: Kuchiki Rukia & Kurosaki Ichigo, Kurosaki Ichigo/Urahara Kisuke
Comments: 15
Kudos: 226
Collections: UraIchi Week 2020





	Loyalty of a God

**Author's Note:**

> Do I have any idea where I'm going with this? Yes. Do I have any idea how long it's gonna be? ABSOLUTELY FUCKING NOT, PLEASE ENJOY.

The first time Ichigo saw the man with the eyes of a god, he was nine years old and standing before a grave.

He was cold.

The stone before him was quiet, as his mother had never been, as his father shouldn’t be. Dad wasn’t talking now. Neither was Ichigo, staring sightless and still at the smooth stone. Ichigo wanted to cry, but he wouldn’t. He couldn’t, not—

Not now. Not when warm hands weren’t here to soothe his tears away, and not when the person he’d wanted to defend was gone.

He was cold, and nothing could warm him.

Ichigo was a boy of nine, and death was so far from his understanding. But he knew it was quieter now, eerie and still like the last echoes of stones in a dry well. He knew that Yuzu and Karin hadn’t stopped crying for someone that wasn’t there, and he knew that his mother’s hand had felt cold the last time he’d held it.

It had never felt cold before.

Ichigo was barely nine, and he’d lost more battles with a toothy smile than he’d ever won with a scowl. He was nine and not crying, even though he wanted to. He was only nine, but he knew he’d lost a warm smile he couldn’t replace.

It would take him years to realize that nothing could replace a sun.

The quiet click of wood on stone drew his eyes up, to a man walking across the gentle path towards them. The sound was so loud, over a silence that shouldn’t have been.

Ichigo didn’t know it then, but he would remember that sound for the rest of his life. He would remember this man for the rest of his life, and he wouldn’t be cold.

But standing before quiet stone, looking up into the shadows of a striped hat that he couldn’t really see, Ichigo didn’t know to pay attention. He didn’t cry either, for all that staring up made his eyes burn under the sun. The man looked down at him, and Ichigo thought he saw a flicker of gold dance around the man’s face, a few too many eyes linger and shine in the sunlight.

Ichigo thought he saw a lot of things, but he was more focused on the silence. Dad didn’t go quiet much, but he’d been even louder since mom died. The girls cried more too, and Ichigo could only try to help and protect them. He had only ever wanted to protect. 

He wanted to cry. He wouldn’t.

“Kurosaki-san. My deepest condolences,” the man said, voice smooth and respectful before polished stone.

“Kisuke,” came the response from his father, and it was quiet too. It trailed off from there, the rest said too softly for a small child to hear, conversation misting between two men who had failed. Well. One man, for all that he’d once been a captain and held a zanpakutō steady.

The other couldn’t really be called a man anymore.

But few people knew that, and that was exactly how Urahara Kisuke liked it. He’d worked hard and carefully over the last century, to ensure that the shop and its occupants stayed safe. He’d let a thousand plans thread out from his fingers to protect the lives of six ex-soul reapers, and two friends.

The threads felt hollow without a sword, but he spun them out anyway. There was a war to prepare for, even if only a handful of souls remembered it.

The human world didn’t know Urahara Kisuke, and Soul Society hardly knew him as more than an once-inventor and once-captain. They didn’t remember him, not after his trial had been canceled by an authority even the Central 46 answered to.

That was how Kisuke liked it.

But he didn’t like this. He didn’t care for the carved stone sitting where Kurosaki Masaki should be smiling. It was a cold day to have regrets, but he wore them like old clothes.

He had been too slow, for the third time. He hadn’t stopped it from happening, not even with all his planning and care, not even with his strength.

He was too slow.

But Urahara Kisuke had once been a clever man, and now he was a clever god. He had a thousand new plans, spiraling out even now. And, well, if those plans frustrated Aizen into a mistake too? That was even more advantageous.

He would do everything he could, to protect this single family. He would guard them, and when the time came, he would train them too, if they asked.

Kisuke looked down at eyes that looked like Masaki’s, and knew that Ichigo would ask.

⊱ ━━━━.⋅❈⋅.━━━━ ⊰

The second time Ichigo saw the man, he was 15 and filled with all the rebellion bright hair and quick fists could fit. He was tall too, walking with a confidence he’d earned in a thousand fights. Ichigo didn’t know it, but his walk would grow calmer. It would grow deadlier too, honed from raw protective passion into a lethal shield.

The world didn’t know it, but Ichigo would become more than a great man. The world didn’t know it, but his strength would grow to match his will, unstoppable and endless.

Nothing could match his heart.

But now, he walked with annoyed steps and searched for something no one else could see. The roads of Karakura greeting him with each passing minute, but offered no answers. The pavement was hard beneath every step, but he walked on and paid it no mind.

There were flowers pressing against his fingers. The stems were wet with dew, fresh from the florist and bright with life.

They wouldn’t stay that way, if Ichigo couldn’t find who he was looking for.

He took a few more steps, determined but not hopeful. The street was as empty as it had been a moment ago, pavement clean and road empty. Quiet sunlight filtered down across his skin, light and dancing.

He felt warm.

But that didn’t help, when he couldn’t find the damn ghost. He ran a hand through his hair, fingers rough and too quick. The flowers in his hand were useless, if she was gone.

Had she moved on already, he wondered? He didn’t know. He thought of her standing alone, and how she’d smiled when he’d stopped to greet her the first time. Her eyes had been small and teary, as red as a ghost’s eyes could be.

She’d looked so much like Yuzu. 

He held the flowers in a careful grip, and kept looking.

“If you’re searching for the ghost with the bow, she’s not here I’m afraid.”

A strange voice echoed over the street, loud enough to shake the quiet sunlight to pieces. It was light too, playfully informative in a way that set Ichigo’s hackles rising immediately.

The man who spoke set him off too, standing with a smile that held too many secrets, and a hat that could keep them all. Ichigo wasn’t going to trust that look, not when the words had come from nowhere.

But the man spoke like he could see ghosts. The man spoke like he knew who Ichigo was searching for, when no one else had been able to see the girl’s quiet smile.

The flowers were beginning to wilt under the sunlight.

He turned to demand answers, took a single step forward across warm pavement. The girl here had been sweet and kind, with small hands that shook in the sunlight. She’d died in an accident a few weeks back, and her parents walked by the spot but never knew she was there.

She deserved flowers, damn it.

But the words fell off his tongue as soon as he saw the man’s eyes.

They were glittering gold.

“You,” he said, the word sharp with memory. But he didn’t know this man, not really. There was recognition thrumming through his bones, sounding like the quiet steps before a grave and the sparkle of bright eyes.

It was familiar, but damn if he could place it.

“Me?” There was a flutter of gold Ichigo almost didn’t see, as the man adjusted his hat with a smile. “I’m sorry, have we met before?”

“Yes,” Ichigo said, before he could figure out why. He felt his scowl grow darker, annoyed around the edges. The flower stems dug into his fingers, dew drying across his skin. “I think.”

“Well now, you don’t sound very sure.” The man’s smile grew smaller, but sharper. It was still hard to see, under a bright sun and a dark hat.

Ichigo snorted, taking a step closer. He felt like he was approaching a stray cat, for all that the man was at least twenty five and bright eyes glittered in the shadows of a hat like they were deadly.

Maybe it was the smile.

“Yeah, well, I’m not, and that’s fine. But I do think I know you.”

There was a long pause, and the man hummed quietly across from him. Ichigo thought he could see hints of gold dance around the edges of that hat, as if it swirled with the wind.

He felt warm. 

“You’ll need to do better than ‘I think,’ I think!” The man said, with a cheery smile that never reached his eyes.

Ichigo resisted the urge to punch him. He shouldn’t have resisted at all, when the man turned to leave without a word or a glance backwards.

The sound of wood striking pavement echoed in his ears, and Ichigo could only sight. He wanted answers, damn it.

Ichigo followed the man without a word, and caught up quickly, matching the man’s pace with long steps. He refused to match that smile, even when it shifted and changed as they walked.

“You are going to be a pain in the ass, aren’t you? You still need to tell me what happened to the girl.”

“My my, you flatter me. And you shouldn’t worry about her. She’s gone someplace better,” the man said, and Ichigo didn’t think he imagined how that tone had gone from playful to wistful in a heartbeat.

Could this man be straightforward for a single damn minute? Ichigo’s fingers clenched across the flowers in his fingers, felt the stems press into his palm. The dew was gone, dried out on his skin and cold.

He would still worry.

“What does that even mean? _And,_ ” Ichigo continued, keeping pace as they walked. The steps were definitely growing longer, the man moving faster even though wooden sandals clicked at exactly the same pace. “You dodged the question. If you didn’t know me you’d just say it. So I do know you.”

A fan fluttered suddenly, appearing from the depths of the man’s sleeve to swirl the air around them. The smile vanished behind it, leaving only sharp eyes to peer from the shadows of thehat.

Ichigo felt the hairs across his neck prickle, and glared harder. He walked faster too, following the man’s wandering steps through the streets of Karakura.

Somehow, the wooden sound of those steps was comforting. Why was it comforting?

“You are really quite clever, aren’t you Kurosaki-san?” The man said, after a silence that had lingered too long.

Well. That answered _that_ question. Ichigo stared harder, willing the fan to fall away and the hat to spill its secrets.

“How do you know me?”

“I’m but a humble shopkeeper I’m afraid. But your father is a customer of mine. And,” the man stopped, and Ichigo stopped with him, pavement catching his feet and sunshine warming his shoulders. There was a shop before them, tucked away on a quiet street Ichigo hadn’t walked before. It was clean and simple, made of a polished wood that looked like it was a century old.

But Ichigo couldn’t concentrate on that, not when the man’s eyes were glittering, and the smile had dropped away.

It was quiet.

“I knew your mother too,” the man said, as the fan snapped closed in the sunlight. It snapped shut on the chance Ichigo was going to let the man leave too.

A bright smile lingered in his memories, beside warmest hands that had ever held him. A laugh, like droplets of sunshine, was the sound that used to comfort him into sleep. So much lingered, where Ichigo refused to linger on it.

The man knew his mother?

“You better start explaining things.” The words were sharper than Ichigo meant them to be, but the flowers in his hand were wilting, and he remembered too much. He wanted, in a desperate surge that felt like guilt, to know everything.

Ichigo was cold.

The man laughed, wry and quiet. “Well since you’ve followed me all the way home, I don’t think you leave me a choice.”

“Cut the shit,” he said, looking the man in the eyes. Something told him that was so very wrong, as the wilted flowers were wrong, as the memory-that-wasn’t was wrong. It was hard to make eye contact, when Ichigo still saw the hints of gold catching at the air around the man’s face.

He did it anyway.

“I’m supposed to believe you couldn’t have gotten rid of me along the way? And even if you couldn’t have, you didn’t even need to lead me here.” His hand cut the air, sharper than the tone and the laugh. The flowers shook, a petal falling to the ground.

Were his hands shaking? Or were the flowers dying?

“Far too clever indeed,” the man said, and pulled the door open with a smile. This one looked honest, and Ichigo trusted it less.

“You might as well come in, Kurosaki-san. Ururu-chan can make us some tea.”

A small girl popped up from the corner of the door, tiny beside the man but quietly smiling. A boy stood behind her, eyeing Ichigo like he was a threat.

Ichigo understood that urge, from one brother to another. He ignored it, too focused on the man with the eyes that hurt to look at.

He couldn’t think beyond his memories.

“There is more to see than just ghosts, you know,” the man said, when they had settled into a room in the back of the shop. A table stretched between them, polished wood holding steaming tea and all of Ichigo’s impatience.

Couldn’t the man get to the damn point?

Ichigo leaned across his knees, weight shifting with everything the man didn’t say. He hadn’t heard anything about ghosts before, and for all that he wanted answers about his mom, this was interesting too.

He still felt an angry impatience.

“More things? I haven’t seen anything but ghosts, and I’ve seen ghosts my whole life.”

“I’m not sure that’s entirely correct, Kurosaki-san. Or maybe you are just extraordinarily lucky.” The man fluttered that damn fan while he spoke, until wind teased across Ichigo’s skin and the words cut at his temper. They sounded like a taunt, light and playful in a way that made Ichigo’s face twitch.

He’d known this man for all of a few hours and he already wanted to wipe the smile off that face.

This was going to be a long day.

“But let me tell you a bit about what else is out there, before we move to other topics. You wouldn’t want to stumble across a monster unawares, after all.”

Ichigo walked away hours later, with new knowledge to make his head ache, and the swirl of gold glinting in his memories. He walked away knowing there were more monsters walking the streets than just the human ones, and they wore white masks and were called hollows.

They were hungry too, according to the man, eating the vulnerable spirits that fell through the cracks of life.

But they hadn’t eaten the girl, and so Ichigo placed the flowers where she had stood and sent out a silent thought.

He hoped she was at peace. He hoped she was happy, in this place called Soul Society. He hoped she wasn’t crying.

He wanted to do more.

It was only hours later, when he fell across his bed full from Yuzu’s cooking, that he realized he’d been tricked.

The man hadn’t told him about his mother.

Ichigo punched the pillow, fingers steady. There were no flowers to hold now, and he didn’t need to be gentle.

“Damn it.”

⊱ ━━━━.⋅❈⋅.━━━━ ⊰

The third time Ichigo saw the man was the next day, when he barged into the shop and demanded answers for the second time. Better answers too, because the man had dodged every attempt to get to the root of the issue with a fluttering fan and bright smile.

The man had dodged everything, and Ichigo had fallen for it.

“You never explained how you can see ghosts. Or how you know my mom,” he said, slouching into a seat across from eyes that were lined with fluttering gold. A man broader than Chad had let him in, with only a quiet nod and a _he’s in the back._ A cup of tea steamed into the air before him too, placed before he’d walked through the door.

He had been expected. Somehow, that was even more irritating than the snap of a fan or the smile Ichigo couldn’t trust.

A laugh answered him, quiet and too damn amused. “Well, it’s with my eyes, Kurosaki-san. Isn’t that how most people see things?”

“Damn it,” Ichigo said, slapping the table between them. The tea jolted just enough to shake and tremble, and a spark of guilt caught at his bones. The kid outside had given them this tea, he was sure.

He didn’t want to spill it. 

The man echoed the thought, waving lazy hands through the air. “Now now, settle down. It wouldn’t do to spill the tea Ururu-chan made for us.”

Ichigo sat, scowling. He took a sip of tea, the heat washing down his throat. He didn’t stop staring at the man’s eyes, even if they were painful to catch. 

He still didn’t understand it, but Ichigo had seen ghosts for all his life. He could handle seeing a man with gold dancing around his eyes.

“I knew your mother for twenty years, Kurosaki-san. Since she was a teenager. You have a lot of her fire,” the man said, with a lazy smile and quiet nostalgia. It was more honest than anything else, and it made Ichigo’s shoulders slump.

He felt cold.

He heard his mother’s name everyday from goat-face, but he hadn’t spoken about her to anyone else in so long. Had she been like the sun to everyone? Had he taken someone else’s sun, too?

“Of course, she was much prettier than you, even in high school. Managed her hair better too, though it was the same color.” The man’s words were teasing, and Ichigo felt each one press into his skin. He wasn’t going to flush from anything but anger, for that.

“Shut up,” he snapped, slamming his hand across the table again. The tea shook and splashed, barely staying in the curve of the cup.

Ichigo did not feel guilty.

“Did—” he stopped, took a quiet breath. The air felt too quiet, and the room too small. The man’s eyes were too heavy, and Ichigo’s heart was pounding too fast.

“Did you know that she’s dead?”

The words were painful to speak, but important. They boiled up, from the place that Ichigo ignored and pushed away.

He had only ever wanted to protect her.

A thousand thoughts swirled in his blood, but his mouth felt locked shut. His fingers pressed against the table, too white and too tense to be calm. 

He didn’t want to spill the tea again, so he let his hands linger across the wood. The polish felt smooth under his fingers, as the man’s voice sounded smooth.

“You think it’s your fault, don’t you? Oh, you hardly got her killed. There are hollows everywhere, Kurosaki-san, and your mother was tempting food. They killed her. That’s the long and short of it.”

And that was all the man said, like it wasn’t the strangest thing Ichigo had heard in nine years. That was all the man said, and Ichigo felt cold with shock.

“She was killed by a hollow?” He began, voice getting tighter with every word. He felt like he’d vibrate out of his skin, like the fight that always lingered in his bones was boiling and bright.

Ichigo felt like he might break something. He felt like he might shatter too, from all the hints the man had left in their conversation.

_There is more to see than just ghosts_ , had swirled over this table, and Ichigo hadn’t thought about it long enough.

He really should have.

“Tell me.” He couldn’t have stopped the demand if he tried, and with a bright smile shining in his memories, he didn’t try.

“It is not my story to tell,” the man said, with sharp eyes and shadows that ate at Ichigo’s vision. There were hints of gold too, and they glimmered all the more damning in the quiet room. He wished he’d asked about them. His fingers felt tight and rough, pressed against smooth wood.

“But wallowing in guilt that isn’t even yours to claim? All to feel better about your mother’s death? That’s hardly what she wanted. It’s pathetic.”

The table cracked under his fingers.

Ichigo didn’t say a word as he left. He stood, in quiet silence and with his hands shaking. He didn’t look at the man, and didn’t look back at the table.

His chest ached. 

As he left, he saw a flash of color and cloth in the corner of his eye. The two kids stood there, the boy looking up at him and the girl looking down at the floor.

They were so small.

“I’m sorry about the tea,” he said, and watched the girl smile. The words were hard to speak, when his fingers were clenched and his skin was tight and prickling.

It was hard to speak when the man’s words echoed in his head.

“It’s okay,” she said, small and quiet. It was wrong too, as wrong as anything could be.

Nothing was okay.

Ichigo left the shop, bag slung across his shoulder and thoughts swirling. The walk home was quiet, as his mind was not, as the world was not. He walked past an empty flower vase, and remembered the feel of flower stems across his palm.

He was cold, but it leeched out slowly.

With each step closer to home, his fingers relaxed across his bag. Dinner helped, Yuzu smiling bright and cheerful over a meal that tasted like mom’s cooking always had. Karin helped too, with annoyed comments and sharp efficiency. She was looking at him like she could tell something was wrong, but Ichigo didn’t care.

This wasn’t her burden to bear.

Even goat-face helped, with bright words and boisterous laughter. The man was more energized than usual, spinning across the room and dancing with Yuzu.

They all helped.

This was the family he had to protect now, Ichigo thought, and his fingers fell flat and relaxed against the table. The wood was smooth, and didn’t crack under his fingers.

He had to protect them. He had to know.

He had to go back.

**Author's Note:**

> Come hit me up on [my server](https://discord.gg/7tn2ywb) for prompts and general tomfoolery, and my [twitter](https://twitter.com/gotcocomilk) or [tumblr](https://thehoardofthegreatdragon.tumblr.com) for stupidity. 
> 
> I love hear if I wrote a particularly captivating or interesting line-- feel free to include it in a comment to feed your friendly neighborhood writing monster.


End file.
